Obligation or of any Bond in humane Society They cannot make void or break the Clauses of an Edict so well deserv'd by the Protestants so just and so wise in it self so solemnly establish'd so religiously sworn to and so often and so authentically confirm'd by three Kings without shaking all the Foundations of publick Security without violating in that Act the Law of Nations and filling the World with fatal Principles which by ruining all mutual Faith among men render Divisions in States incurable and consequently immortal Dear Sir said I I am much pleased with what you have inform'd me O how I shall dash them out of countenance who hereafter shall compare the condition of our Papists in England with that of the Protestants in France There is no sort of good usage but what is due to these in their own Country of which they have deserved so well by preserving that Family which now reigns there What have they not a right to hope for under the protection of an Edict so authentick But our Papists in England have they ever deserved a like protection Hath there ever been pass'd any Act of Parliament in favour of them like to this Edict On the contrary have not there been pass'd 1000 against them And not one but upon the provocation of some Sedition or open Rebellion You need but review the Fundamental Laws of the Land now in force against the Pope against the Jesuits Seminary Priests and in general against all the Papists There is decreed justly against them all the contrary that by the Edict of Nantes is promised to the Protestants You are much in the right said our Friend when you use the word justly on this occasion Princes and Protestant Magistrates cannot look upon nor by consequence treat Papists otherwise than as declared and mortal Enemies of their Persons and of their States They may disguise themselves as they please But in truth every Papist is a man who takes the Pope to be the Soveraign Head of the Universal Church and believes that on that very account there is no Prince nor King nor Emperor who is not subject to his Censures even to Excommunication Now who knows not that it is a general Maxim of that Religion that they ought to treat all excommunicated persons as common Pests Upon this all Subjects are dispensed with from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Princes Kingdoms are laid under Interdicts and they are no way obliged to keep faith with Hereticks This is the original and damnable Cause of the many Conspiracies that have been made against the Sacred Lives of our Kings And if you will search our Histories you will find none of the forementioned Acts ever passed but upon some previous provocation given by the Papists Insolence or Rebellions of the Massacres in France and Ireland wherein they of Rome have so triumph'd and of the general consternation into which so lately our Nation was cast They would fain perswade us that these pernicious Maxims are peculiar to the Jesuits and some Monks But a little Treatise called The Difference between the Church and Court of Rome proves undeniably that it is the judgment of all true Papists I could produce other invincible authority if this point were here to be proved There cannot then be too great caution against such persons whatever they pretend they do not design simply the exercise of that Belief which their Conscience dictates to them they grasp at the Power and aspire at Dominion they design whatever it cost them to have their Church reign once more here in England There is nothing they dare not attempt nothing they are not ready to act that they may compass it They are implacable Enemies who wait but for an opportunity to cut our Throats and we must needs be very senseless and stupid if after so many proofs as they have given us of their desperate malice we should repeal those Laws which tie up their hands You are much in the right I replyed but let us leave them for the present and return to our Protestants of France You have shewed me their Rights now let me understand their Grievances I am willing to do it said he but it is a little late and if you please being somewhat weary with my Journey we will defer it till to morrow I will expect you here in my Chamber at the same hour you came to day I told him with all my heart And as our Conversation ended there I think it not amiss to end my Letter also intending in another to let you know the present condition of those poor People I am your c. LETTER II. I Did not fail to wait on my Friend at the appointed hour Sit down said he as soon as he saw me in the Chamber and let us lose no time in needless Ceremony I was just putting my Papers in order by which I would desire you to judge of the Protestants Complaints and the Reasons that have made them leave their Country But since you are here take them as they come to hand The first is a Verbal Process of the extraordinary Assembly of the Archbishops and Bishops held in the Province of the Arch-Bishop of Paris in the Months of March and May this 1681. It is a Piece which justifies a Truth that the World will hardly believe Namely That whereas the Protestants by Virtue of the Edict had the Exercise of their Religion almost every where they have it now scarce any where See the proof in the tenth Page of that Verbal Process where one of the Agents General of the Clergy of France alledgeth as so many publick Testimonies of the Piety of their King An almost Infinite Number of Churches demolish'd and the Exercise of the Religion pretended Reformed suppress'd I leave you to imagine what a consternation such a terrible Blow must have put those poor people into not to mention their Grief to see those Holy Places beaten down whose very Stones they took pleasure in instead of having the Heavenly Mannah shower down at the Doors of their Tabernacles at this present they are forc'd to go 30 or 40 miles through the worst of ways in the Winter to hear the Word of God and to have their Children baptized But let us go on to a second Piece Here is a Declaration hath lain heavy upon them in reference to an infinite number of living Temples who are far otherwise to be lamented for by reason of the rigor they are us'd with than the Temples of Stone that are demolish'd It is of the thirteenth of March 1679. Pray read it It forbids all Popish Clergy-men whatever desire they have to turn Protestants and even all those Protestants who have forsaken their Religion out of Lightness or Infirmity to return to it again upon better knowledge of the truth press'd to it by their Consciences and desiring to give glory to God This dreadful Edict will not suffer that any of them shall
satisfie their Consciences in so important an Affair under any less penalty than that of the Amende Honorable perpetual banishment and confiscation of their Goods I beseech you said I what doth the Declaration intend by making Amende Honorable You have reason to ask replyed he it is that you ought not to be ignorant of Know then that for them to make Amende Honorable is to go into some publick place in their Shirt a Torch in their Hand a Rope about their Neck followed by the Hangman in this Equipage which is that of the most infamous Criminals to ask pardon of God the King and Justice for what they have done that is to say on this occasion for having dar'd to repent of sinning against God for having forsaken a Religion which they believ'd Heretical and Idolatrous and consequently the infallible way to eternal damnation and for being willing thence forward to profess the Protestant Religion in which only they are perswaded they can be saved This is dear Friend what they inflict upon all Popish Ecclesiasticks to whom God vouchsafes Grace to discern the true Religion and upon all Protestants who having been such Wretches as to forsake it are afterwards so happy as to be convinc'd of their Sin and to repent They call the first Apostates and the other Relaps But Names do not change the nature of things the Misery is that all this is executed with the utmost rigor The Prisons of Poictiers and those of other places are at this present filled with this sort of pretended Relapsed Persons and it is not permitted to any one to relieve them What possibility is there then for such as are in like Circumstances and whose number every day increases to continue in France But the mischief is much increas'd since this Declaration What was particular to Ecclesiasticks and Relapse Protestants is now become universal to all Roman Catholicks I shewed you the Piece yesterday It is that very Edict of June 1680 wherein they pretend to confirm the Edict of Nantes A Blessed Confirmation The Edict of Nantes as I have shewed you allows the Liberty of Conscience to all them who were then Protestants and to all such as would be afterwards Inhabitants or others But what doth this new Edict declare Our Will and Pleasure is that our Subjects of what quality condition age or sex soever now making profession of the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion may never forsake it to go ever to the pretended Reformed Religion for what Cause Reason Pretence or Consideration soever We will that they who shall act contrary to this our Pleasure shall be condemned to make Amende Honorable to perpetual banishment out of our Kingdom and all their Goods to be confiscated We forbid all Ministers of the said pretended Reformed Religion hereafter to receive any Catholick to make profession of the pretended Reformed Religion and we forbid them and the Elders of their Consistories to suffer in their Churches or Assemblies any such under penalty to the Ministers of being deprived for ever of exercising any Function of their Ministry in our Kingdom and of suppression for ever of the Exercise of the said Religion in that place where any one Catholick shall be received to make profession of the said pretended Reformed Religion Lord what a horrible proceeding is this cryed I as soon as my Friend had read it do they call this confirming of Edicts in France what a Violence is this to the Consciences of Ministers and Elders to command them to shut the doors of the Church of Jesus Christ to all their Neighbours who come thither for admission and to have this done by them who are called by God to open the Door to all the World Is not this to force them to violate the most Essential and Sacred Duty of Christian Charity In truth if there were nothing else but this I do not see how they can stay there much longer with a safe Conscience They must swallow worse Potions than these said my Friend you shall see presently quite other Preparations What replyed I have they the heart to use thus cruelly those poor Churches within whose Walls any Roman Catholick changes his Religion Don't doubt it said he they make no conscience at all to exceed their Commission whensoever they are enjoyn'd to execute any penalty I will give you an Example which will amaze you There is a great Town in Poitou called La Motthe where the Protestants have a Church consisting of between three and four thousand Communicants a young Maid of about seventeen years old who from a Protestant had turned Papist had stole her self into the Congregation upon a Communion-day Now you must observe that the Protestant Churches are full on those days For they would believe themselves very much to blame if they lost any Opportunity of partaking at the Lord's Supper Nevertheless without considering how easie it was for that young Maid not to be discovered by the Consistory in such a Crowd and tho those poor people were not at all within the Letter of that rigorous Edict they have made them undergo all the penalty The Exercise of their Religion is wholly suppress'd there and their Minister not allowed to preach in France This is very cruel said I to our Friend and tho it were true that those Ministers and those Elders were guilty upon such an account why should the whole flock be punished Those poor Sheep what have they done That is very usual for those Gentlemen answered he I have a hundred Stories to instance in I cannot forbear telling you one which many of their own Devotees were scandalized at S. Hippolyte is a place in where all the Inhabitants are Protestants except the Curate and it may be two or three poor wretches who are not Natives of the place neither A fancy took the Curate to put a Trick upon the Protestants for this he chose a Sunday and the very moment that they came out of the Church he came and presented himself before them with his Sacrament as they were almost all come out You must know that the Church is on the farther side of a Bridge which must be pass'd over going and coming Several of them were upon the Bridge others had pass'd it and part were yet on the other side when the Curate appear'd all of them who could possibly got away and hid themselves but neither the place nor the great haste of the Curate would permit all of them to do so He went up directly to one of the Company whom he had born an ill will to for some time he bids him kneel and the other answering that his Conscience would not suffer him to do it he gave him a Cuff on the Ear. He that was struck grumbled and so did two or three who were about him The Curate went on his way threatning hard Next day there were Informations made on both sides the Curate in his not complaining of any person but him he had
himself up wholly to the making of Proselytes The Deputies of Poitiers are now here to make complaint of the violences they still labour under They offer by a Petition which they have presented at the cost of their lives if they are found guilty of any Falshood or if they do not make out what they say They set forth that by the Orders of Monsieur Marillac the Protestants are dealt with as declared Enemies that their Goods and their Houses are plundered their persons assaulted that the Soldiers are employed as Executioners of these Outrages That they are quartered upon the Protestants only that besides the excessive expence they put them to they exact money of them with dreadful Oaths and Execrations They knock them down they drag Women by the hair of the Head and Ropes about their Necks they have put them to the torture with Screws by clapping their Fingers into a Vice and so squeezing them by degrees they have bound aged Men eighty years old and beaten them and have misused before thir Eyes their Children who came to comfort them They hinder Handicrafts men from working they take from Labourers what they use for their Livelyhood they set their Goods openly to sale and they clap their Swords and Pistols to their Breasts who are not frighted with their other Usages they drag them in Sheets into their Churches they throw Holy Water in their Faces and then say they are Catholicks and shall be proceeded against as Relapsed if they live otherwise It is not permitted to these miserable persons to complain those who would have attempted it have been seised on and the Prisons are full of them They are detained there without any Process being made against them and even without so much as having their Names entred in the Jayl-Books If any Gentleman speak to Monsieur Marillac he answers them that they should meddle with their own Business that otherwise he will lay them fast This is a Taste of what they are doing here A Copy of the Third Letter BEing very busie it shall suffice at this time to send you a Copy of a Letter which I just now received from Saintes concerning the Protestants of this Kingdom Sir J. P. our common Friend writ it me He is now making his Tour of France I intreated him to inform himself as well as he could how they treated the poor people in those places he was to pass through that he might give me a full Account This is the Letter dated the last of August Old Style I am now going out of Aulnix where I meet with nothing but Objects of Compassion The Intendant of Rochefort which is Monsieur Du Muins lays all waste there It is the same person concerning whom at the Marquis de Segnelay's we were told so many pleasant Stories last Winter at S. Germain Do not you remember that they talked much of a certain Picard who owed all his Fortune to his Wife and whom the Marquis de Segnelay treats always as the worst of men That 's the Man he is born to do mischief as much as ever man was and his Employment hath increas'd bis insolence beyond measure To this he hath added to the Protestants grief all the barbarous zeal of Ignorance And if the King would let him do it he would soon act over again the Tragedy of S. Bartholomew About ten days since he went to a great Town in Aunix called Surgeres accompanied with his Provost and about forty Archers He began his Feats with a Proclamation that all the Huguenots should change their Religion and upon their refusal he quartered his Troop upon those poor people he made them to live there at discretion as in an Enemies Country he made their Goods to be thrown into the Streets and their Beds under the Horses Feet By his Order the Vessels of Wine and Brandy were staved and their Horse Heels wash'd with it their Corn was sold or rather given away for a fourth part of what it was worth and the same was done to all the Tradesmens Goods Men Women and Children were put to the Torture were dragged by force to the Popish Churches and so great Cruelty was used towards them that the greatest part not being able longer to indure the extremity of the pain renounced their Religion By the same means they forced them to give it under their hands That they had abjured without constraint and of their own free choice The Goods of those who found means to escape are sentenced to be sold and to be pillaged Proud of so noble an Expedition our good man returns to Rochefort the place of his ordinary abode forbids all the Protestants who are there pretty numerous to remove any of their Goods out of the Town under penalty of confiscation of what should be seised and corporal punishment over and above and he commands them all to change their Religion in five days This was done by sound of Trumpet that no one might pretend ignorance The Term expires to morrow After this he marched to Mozé it is another great Town in Aunix where there is a very fair Church of the Protestants and a very able Minister there he set out the same Prohibitions and the same Commands that he had at Rochefort Upon this a very worthy person of the place and Elder of the Church named Mr. Jarry addressed to him with a most humble Remonstrance and this cruel and barbarous man made him presently to be clapt up in Irons After this he quartered his Men upon those of the Protestant Religion where he exerciseth the same violence which he did at Surgeres Nevertheless hitherto no one hath made Shipwrack of his Conscience in this place They suffer all this cruel persecution with an admirable constancy God of his Mercy support them to the end All the rest of Aunix is in extreme consternation There are likewise Prohibitions made at Rochelle against the shipping of any Goods In so much that all they who flie away run a great hazard of carrying away their lives only for a prey Adieu I will end mine as Sir J. P. doth his all your Friends Do you intend to conclude there said I to our Friend I have a mind to do so replyed he tho I have a thousand Insolences and Outrages more yet to acquaint you with But it is late and I have produced but too much to justifie the French Protestants who forsake their Country from any suspicion of impatience or wantonness You see now what are the Reasonable Means that are used to convert them Those goodly means which have been employed are To despise the most Sacred Edict that was ever made by men to count as nothing promises repeated a hundred times most solemnly by authentick Declarations to reduce people to utmost Beggary to make them die of Hunger in my opinion a more cruel death than that by Fire or Sword which in a moment ends life and miseries together to lay upon them all sorts of